


a star shines bright

by sunbirds



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Heart Eating, It's a Stardust au with KH elements! That's all it is!, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:46:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbirds/pseuds/sunbirds
Summary: “I’m strong. I could do something about it, I bet.”“Being able to lift sacks of potatoes or chop firewood doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that you can fight magic with.”Terra wants to save a world he no longer belongs to. Saving a star is just the first step.





	a star shines bright

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this sitting in my docs forever and i don't know if i'll ever actually finish writing it but i briefly (so, so, soooo briefly) skimmed over it and decided i might as well post at least this part of it and maybe i'll feel inspired down the line. it's subject to lots of changes! it's also totally unedited! enjoy my typos! eat my grammatical errors!
> 
> that said, while i may or may not abandon THIS because what i have planned for it is sooo much and i'm Lazy, i'm not abandoning my other terriku works!!! i was waiting for a new laptop to come into my life, that's all!

* * *

“I didn’t know stars could grow so old,” a voice behind Xehanort says. “Were you planning on keeping it to yourselves?” 

It is a pain to deal with brothers. Not by blood, but by the ties of magic that bind them into a coven with one another. Xemnas is already here, looking down his nose at the proceedings, but even he cannot hide his keen interest. He’s not one for stars; he’s too impatient. He’d rather spend his time looking for strong hearts here instead of waiting for something that’s already  _ perfect  _ to drop from the sky. Xehanort thinks him a fool, but he cannot deny the fact that the hearts of non-cosmic beings are valuable to him, too.

“No,” Xehanort answers, even though he had had every intention of doing so. Ideally, Xemnas wouldn’t be here, either, would keep to his weak collection of hearts. If he was going to share with anybody by choice, it would be with Eraqus, but– 

The voice comes closer, punctuated by the solid thump of boot soles against the stone floors. “Then, you’re hiding from Eraqus?” 

That was right. Eraqus was too content to let himself and his magic wither away without ever wanting for more. He’d never look favorably upon this. Xehanort nods, trying to keep quiet while he tightens straps. The last thing he wants is for the star to seize with the impact of his blade and ruin what would otherwise be a clean cut. His moment of glory will not be tarnished by a mess of more blood than is necessary. 

“It’s already dying,” his brother says, now brushing arms with Xehanort as he leans over where the star is laid out, secured by strips of leather to a stone table. It sleeps and glows faintly, but any glow is better than none at all. “What’s its name? However did you manage to find it? How is it that you’ve maintained its glow when death is so imminent?”

These questions are a nuisance. They’re all too inquisitive by nature. He can’t help himself from answering anyway.

“Ansem fell on the cusp of his death in the sky. He landed just on the horizon… Knowing he would die soon, he agreed as easily to this as–” 

“Agreeing to die and sleeping so peacefully through a death that will hurt much more? You must have put up some act with him… Or you’re falling apart so thoroughly that he took pity on you. What a noble thing to do, this old fool.”

“Stop talking, or you will wake him.”

“Mm, best not to give him a chance to regret and lose that glow. Else he’d be as useless as the hearts Xemnas collects…” 

Xehanort doesn’t look up to see how Xemnas reacts. He imagines the other man stares as impassively as ever. 

“I’ll take his name,” his brother continues. “Ansem. I like that.”

“If you take his name, then you do not need a cut of his heart.” 

That gives Ansem pause. The pressure against Xehanort’s arm lets up as Ansem steps back. It gives him the room he needs to seek out his blade and plunge it into the star’s chest. This conversation has taken a bite out of his patience and he cannot afford to take his time with precision anyhow. Much as he’d like to cut away at the star’s torso and reveal the heart beneath flesh and bone without having to sort through the pieces, the idea of losing any shine from the heart pains him. 

Ansem– the star, and not his brother, so taken by the name– convulses with the hit, eyes flashing open, but he’s not long for this world. He dies easy, as peacefully as he can, and while his body loses the telltale glow of a star, through blood flowing out from the wound in his naked chest it is obvious that his heart, pierced though it may be, still shines.

Perhaps “shine” is too strong of a word to use. Xehanort makes haste with cutting away skin to reveal what lies beneath, and it’s– dim. So very much dimmer than he’d hoped as it loses some of its luster with the death of its host, as expected. But by this much?

Ansem– his brother, taken by the name, and not the corpse on the slab before them– laughs, and it echoes in the space around them, taunting. 

“Why would I want for a cut of this heart? It’s so faint that, between the two of you, you’ll get, what? A few years? Take all that you want, brothers. I’ll hold out for the next star that falls… I’ll even be kind enough to fetch it myself and share without stealing it away from your eyes.”

It could be years, dozens or hundreds, before another star falls. Ansem is haughty and overconfident, but then, he still has some of the youth and power that Xehanort has neglected to maintain for himself, so often does he use his magic that it’s taken a toll. 

“If you think you’ll have enough energy to fetch another star in the centuries it could take, then be my guest,” Xehanort grits out, and suddenly he doesn’t care much for how messy this gets as he pries the heart from the star’s chest. It’s split in two, perfect to hand one piece to Xemnas where he stands with his arms crossed. 

“If I don’t, I’m sure Xemnas will be kind enough to let me have at his stores just so I can complete the task. Won’t you, Xemnas?”

Xemnas looks at the halved heart and finally uncrosses his arms to hold one hand up, declining. He doesn’t want it. He sends the same look towards Ansem. 

“If I must. If you’re going to bring a heart that isn’t so…” Xemnas trails off. 

“Pathetic?” Ansem is helpful to supply. Xehanort scoffs and pulls his hand away, gripping the heart piece tightly. “Of course.”

They all seem to be in seething agreement with each other, and nobody wants to stare too long at the mess Xehanort has created for the chance at a handful of years more of power. There is little more to discuss, apparently, because Xemnas and Ansem take their leave. 

* * *

Xehanort eats one half of the heart while staring down his reflection in a dusty bedroom mirror. Appearance, outside of occasionally lingering on an outfit choice, has mattered very little to him ever since the hair stopped growing from his head and tickled instead at his chin. Still, he wants to see the change the star’s heart enacts as much as he wants to feel it.

It’s not that he will become any more powerful, but using magic has its cost, makes the body grow old and feeble. Eating the star is like drinking cold water after running for miles without a drink. Refreshing, but it doesn’t take the ache from his joints. 

It does, however, erase some of the lines of age he’s collected. Wrinkles disappear from his forehead and the squint of his eyes becomes less pronounced. It’s not much, but it’s something. If the heart was stronger, if it shone more brightly, then he’d look and feel decades younger, and he knows it. He’d be able to use magic again without fearing the consequences as acutely. 

There’s a box on his nightstand that holds the rest of the heart, and he contemplates it deeply. What good will it do, though? Give him a few more sparks of magic, enough to tidy a room or light a fire without a match? Take the dull grey from his beard and turn it to the white it once was? 

He’ll save it for a rainy day, or perhaps– he moves to it and tucks the heart, so like a thick shard of glass or a crystal but soft the way organs should be, into his pocket, where its glow is imperceptible. He has somewhere to be, and that place, with that person, well, what sits in his pocket may suddenly become a gift to be shared. 

* * *

He calls out to his old friend. “Eraqus.”

Eraqus spins on his heel to face him from where he’d been stood on the curve of this hill, this mountain. It is by far not the highest or closest to the heavens above, but it only makes sense that Eraqus would stop here on this lowly jut of earth to gaze up at the stars. He doesn’t care for getting too close to them, not like Xehanort does. 

The wind blows at Eraqus’ hair– he has so much of it, and it has remained almost as dark as it was the day they met– and the man in question takes a moment to push it out of his face before he gets a good look at his companion. His eyes are bright, still full of youthful light. They are the same age, but Eraqus looks much closer to that number. His back is straight and he stands prouder than Xehanort can.

“You look different.”

“Do I?”

The ensuing flash of anger in his expression makes Eraqus look older, the way he might if he’d used his magic as frivolously as Xehanort had while they grew up. 

“I saw a star fall just the other night. I am not a stupid man, Xehanort–” 

“And yet you cheated at every game we ever played because you could never outsmart me otherwise,” he says, making an effort at turning the storm of rage away. If they could just linger on the past, instead– 

Eraqus doesn’t take the bait. He hadn’t really been expecting him to, either.

“What you and our brethren do is… It’s wrong, it’s disgusting. There is no shame in letting nature run its course. To snatch life from others in order to prolong your own, your use of magic, I can’t stand idly by while you do that.”

“That star was dying anyway.”

That’s not the point, and they both know it, and it especially shows on Eraqus’ face. 

“I can’t fight all of you to make you stop. I can’t stay here and watch, either. It’s not right, and it’s not safe...” 

Just like Eraqus to have his strong sense of justice but do nothing to uphold it. Xehanort sneers, but Eraqus is right. If he stays, Ansem and Xemnas may well cut him open for his heart. Such a heart may not shine like a star’s, and it would grant neither of them youth or beauty, but he’s a strong magic user and he’s never darkened it with the kind of magic they use. It would guarantee magic, strength, to pull it from out between the bones of his ribcage and eat it. 

Xehanort has considered it himself, even; he can’t cast pending blame on his brothers alone. He considers it now, too, and feels less sick over it than he has in the past. Something about the look on Eraqus’ face. 

“And just where will you go?”

“Far away… Beyond the wall, into the other realm.”

“Why? There’s nothing there, nothing for you. Your magic would  _ disappear _ and you wouldn’t be able to get it back. It’s a waste.” 

It would be a shame if it went to waste, he means it. If Eraqus doesn’t want it, then… He draws nearer, and Eraqus visibly steels himself, stance going defensive. 

“You’re going mad with want for power, Xehanort. Look at yourself, about to attack me. Your friend, your brother.”

“I’m about to do no such thing.” He is, though, isn’t he. The strength that the star had granted him prickles at his fingertips, itching to come out as a spell that will steal the breath right out of Eraqus’ lungs. “And you’re talking of leaving, losing your magic. You would no longer be a brother to me. Leave, then! Abandon everything you’ve built here and squander your magic.”

* * *

Eraqus does just that. 

When he’s gone, collecting only the bare essentials of his belongings before heading out under the cover of night, Xehanort stands in the doorway of the man’s abandoned bedroom and crams the remainder of the star’s heart into his mouth. It should be tasteless, but it’s bitter.

* * *

There is a hole in The Wall. 

It’s not very big, but it’s a hole nonetheless, and Eraqus knows himself to be the cause of it. When he’d slipped through, seeking solace and simplicity, he hadn’t anticipated that the curtain wouldn’t close behind him. 

The Wall is not really a tangible thing, though there  _ is  _ a tangible wall that runs right through its length, built a man’s height high of stone and crumbling in some places. For somebody here to cross the wall would not mean being thrust into a new world, but to cross The Wall, the thin barrier between magical and non-magical–

He fears more for what would become of all of the magic in that land, if these people so obsessed with material goods and what they cannot begin to fully comprehend stumbled across it. He knows that the people from where he’d grown up have very little interest in coming to a place where there is no magic to be found.

So he guards The Wall, even if he’d like to forget all about the life he’d left behind. With no magic left to mend it, it’s all he can do to keep watch.

He builds his home close to the wall, and prays whenever he leaves it that nothing will happen in his absence.

It’s children that cause the most issue. They like to bother the old man that lives out of the way of the rest of the townspeople, and they get curious about playing in the woods. He’s shooed off a number of them as they’ve come in packs after school, and for the most part, nobody else bothers, because they are all mostly working adults with no time to wonder if there’s something more to life somewhere else. 

It takes him a long while to build up the courage to patch up the stone ruins of the wall. It seems too final to him, like he’s closing the door on ever going back beyond The Wall, though that’s a ruin he can’t fix and he knows it would only be a climb away, if he really wanted… But he doesn’t. He’s fine here, forgetting all the atrocities he can’t stop. He has regrets that he thinks he might be able to soothe if he breaks out the stone and mortar, so he does it.

What he doesn’t expect is the children.

Not from this end, like usual, but coming into focus from the hole in The Wall as he’s kneeled down, placing bricks that would soon be high enough to obscure the pair from view. They aren’t stars, but he can sense something so bright about them that he worries the moment they cross The Wall, they’ll turn right to dust the way a star would. 

“We don’t know where else to go,” the girl says, clutching the hand of the boy beside her. “We just want to be safe.” 

* * *

The boy doesn’t remember much, and the girl can’t find the words to explain, but Eraqus understands. They have the sorts of hearts that his former brothers would kill to get at, even if they aren’t stars. Although, from the way Aqua describes it, he thinks that they’d have liked to do more than just eat their hearts, and Eraqus fears his brothers have been experimenting with a new means of acquiring what they want.

He takes them in, finishes bricking up the wall, and that feels final. Nobody will bother them here.

* * *


End file.
